The Valentine Child. JACQUELINE BAIRD
she was not alone. He was all the family she had left; he was her world…
‘What is it, Zoë?’ Justin demanded, walking into the room, a small towel riding low on his hips his only covering. ‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’ He crossed to the bed, to look soberly down at her small frame outlined beneath the covers then up to the pure, pale oval of her lovely face.
Her heart turned over in her breast at the sight of him. His night-black hair, damp from the shower, was swept severely back from his broad forehead, throwing his rugged features into prominent relief. His deep brown eyes, the cast of his high cheekbones and his slightly olive-tinged complexion revealed his father’s Spanish ancestry, though he never spoke much about his family. She knew his parents were dead, and he had a stepsister who was living with some tribe of Indians in the rainforest on a four-year anthropology study.
‘I was waiting for you,’ she told him softly, stretching out a slender hand to touch his forearm, her sapphire eyes roaming over him in undisguised want.
His wide shoulders gleamed like gold satin; a thick mat of hair covered his broad chest, and arrowed down in a fine line past his navel to disappear beneath the towel. His long, muscular legs were planted slightly apart, a lighter dusting of hair shading them darker.
‘I thought you were never coming,’ she murmured, trailing her hand from his arm to thread her fingers through his curling chest hair.
Justin caught her wrist and, easing her hand back behind her head, lowered his big body down beside her and bent his dark head towards hers. ‘Oh, I think I will, and very quickly, my darling girl,’ he drawled with mocking amusement, but his eyes flashed for an instant with what, to Zoë, looked suspiciously like anger just before his lips brushed over hers in a kiss as light as thistledown.
‘I should go to my own bed and let you rest.’ He whispered the words against her mouth.
‘No. Please, Justin. Don’t leave me alone tonight. I need you.’
‘Do you? I wonder if you know what it means to actually need someone. You’re so hopelessly young,’ he said enigmatically, standing and slipping the damp towel from his hips. She was in no doubt that he would stayhe could not hide his state of arousal from her and did not try to as, with a deft flick of his wrist, he flung the covers back, revealing her naked form to his glittering eyes.
‘You were waiting for me,’ he husked, his heated gaze sweeping over her from where her long hair trailed across the pillow, lingering on her softly parted lips, then again on the pale, round orbs of her perfect breasts, then moving down to the tiny waist and softly flaring hips, and the soft blonde curls at the juncture of her thighs. ‘God, but you’re beautiful, Zoë. Perfection in miniature,’ he growled.
She could feel her whole body blush but she didn’t care; he was her husband. ‘Not so much of the miniature,’ she teased, and stretched out her arms to him in a female gesture as old as time.
He gave her one long look, his face wearing an oddly restrained expression in the shadowy light. Then he dropped to his knees by the side of the bed.
‘Justin?’ she queried tentatively. Then his hand circled her ankle and his black head bent and his lips brushed a trail of kisses from her ankle to her knee, then her thigh.
She trembled with exquisite emotion as his other hand stroked slowly up over her flat stomach and higher, to close over one firm breast. He rolled the aching tip between his long fingers with delicate eroticism, and she moaned her delight. She felt like some Eastern slave girl, spread on the bed for her master’s delectation, but surprisingly she didn’t care…
But soon the hedonistic pleasure was not enough. She wanted to kiss him, touch him, rouse him to the same all-consuming need that engulfed her.
She stretched her hand to his shoulder, her slender fingers clawing his hard flesh. ‘Please, Justin.’
But Justin knew exactly what he was doing to her, the burning fire he was igniting in her body, and refused to be rushed. With hands and mouth he kissed and caressed while withholding from her the ability to reciprocate, until she was whimpering, crying out her need…
Then and only then did he rise and, nudging her legs further apart, eased his length between them. As he supported his weight on his elbows either side of her head, his mouth sought hers again. The kiss was a passionate statement, his tongue moving in her mouth, echoing his masculine possession…
Her eyes flew open and she saw his rugged face, the skin flushed and taut across his cheekbones, his lips curled back in a feral grimace as he fought to stay in control. Then he moved deeper and deeper inside her, harder, faster, and her eyes closed again as every part of her clenched around him then exploded in a surging tide of shattering pleasure. She felt his great frame shudder and the fierce, pulsing heat of him filled her as he found his own release.
For a long time the only sound in the room was their erratic, rasping breath; neither was capable of speech, until eventually Justin rolled on to his back and curved an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side.
‘Justin, my love.’ She sighed, turning her head to press a soft kiss to his sweat-dampened chest.
‘Enough, Zoë. Lie still,’ he ordered raggedly.
They were the first words he had spoken in ages, she realised, but, lying satiated beside him, she didn’t mind. She loved her silent lover…Anyway, she made enough noise for both of them, she thought, slightly shocked at how Justin always managed to get her to beg for his possession. But then why shouldn’t he? He was an experienced, sophisticated lover, and he was only making sure that she was satisfied, she rationalised contentedly. But her contentment plunged five minutes later…
‘I’ll leave you to sleep now, darling,’ Justin murmured. Removing his arm from her shoulder, he swung his feet to the floor.
‘Stay,’ she drawled huskily.
But Justin stood up. Unselfconscious in his nudity, he turned to look down at where she lay in the rumpled bed. She gazed languidly up at him; her blue eyes, slumberous and dark with loving, met his. Then, as she watched, she saw his iron self-control reassert itself. His heavy lids dropped over his half-closed eyes as he moved slightly, avoiding her gaze.
‘Much as I’d like to, it isn’t sensible; I have to be up at six in the morning to be in London for eight. I would only disturb you, Zoë, and you need your rest.’ He was talking to somewhere over her left shoulder—as usual! The thought was frightening…
Zoë sat up in bed and reached out a detaining hand, placing it on his naked thigh. ‘I could come to London with you.’ His hand lifted hers from his thigh and she had the oddest notion that he resented her touch. ‘We
could move to your apartment n-now—’ she swallowed
the lump that formed in her throat “—now Uncle Bertie’s gone.’
Suddenly it seemed imperative to her that they discuss the future, and she didn’t know why. ‘We can put this house on the market—it’s far too big; it’s an anachronism in this day and age. Never mind one child—we would need a dozen even to begin to fill it—’
‘So that’s what this is all about?’ Justin cut in. “I thought we agreed—no babies for a year or two. You would not be trying to blackmail me into changing my mind by threatening to sell the house?’ he demanded hardly. ‘Because, if so, you can forget it.’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she quickly denied. But as she searched his face he looked so cool and remote that once more Sara Blacket’s words echoed in her brain, filling her with a dawning fear that she did not want to recognise. Instead she continued, ‘I simply thought that the house could be a conference centre or a nursing home—something like that. It is very expensive to keep up; Judge Master said so himself.’ She knew she was babbling but she wanted to keep Justin with her.
He leant forward, brought her small hand to his lips and brushed her knuckles with a kiss. ‘You’re probably right and if you want to sell